I'd like him to answer as well. As I quoted, back in August he was quite clear that his god would answer my prayers within a three week period. I'd like him to address why six weeks on, nothing has happened.....though to be honest I'm expecting one or more of:

1) Disappearing.2) Claiming I didn't do it "right" - you know, adding conditions to what he said previously.3) Claiming "god answered but I haven't noticed" - you know, something completely different to the assertions he made before....especially since the object of the exercise was me gaining faith.

The sad part is, every couple months a new Christian comes along and makes claims of exactly what I need to do. And, after my best endeavours to get them to be as specific as possible (to make sure I do it right) I follow their instructions.

Bo they don't, Anf. They come along and make claims about vaguely what you need to do, not exactly what you need to do.

Indeedy. That's why I always always do my level best to get them to be specific before I'll start. Pray what words? When? In what position? How often? What will the response be? When? How will I tell it from my own subconscious? And so forth.

Sadly, it is rare that any believer will actually go on record to such a level of specificity (sp?). Maybe that is why my attempts to follow their instructions always fail.

Bizarre really - you would have thought that a believer would be eager as anything to teach me exactly the right way to pray to save my soul. It seems in many cases that they would rather keep the "secret" to themselves, so they can enjoy the exclusivity that comes from their club. Doesn't sound very Christian to me, of course, but then what do I know?1

I'd like him to answer as well. As I quoted, back in August he was quite clear that his god would answer my prayers within a three week period. I'd like him to address why six weeks on, nothing has happened.....though to be honest I'm expecting one or more of:

1) Disappearing.2) Claiming I didn't do it "right" - you know, adding conditions to what he said previously.3) Claiming "god answered but I haven't noticed" - you know, something completely different to the assertions he made before....especially since the object of the exercise was me gaining faith.

The sad part is, every couple months a new Christian comes along and makes claims of exactly what I need to do. And, after my best endeavours to get them to be as specific as possible (to make sure I do it right) I follow their instructions.

And, time after time, nothing happens.

Don't you know there are two escape clauses:

(1)Sincerely(2)You shalt not test HIm!

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An Omnipowerful God needed to sacrifice himself to himself (but only for a long weekend) in order to avert his own wrath against his own creations who he made in a manner knowing that they weren't going to live up to his standards.

1) Disappearing.2) Claiming I didn't do it "right" - you know, adding conditions to what he said previously.3) Claiming "god answered but I haven't noticed" - you know, something completely different to the assertions he made before....especially since the object of the exercise was me gaining faith.

Don't you know there are two escape clauses:

(1)Sincerely(2)You shalt not test HIm!

Fizix can't claim (2) - he was completely specific that this would work, no question.

Sincerity may or may not be an issue - he specified sincerity, but did also say that I could do it "without first accepting Jesus as Savior. Faith is the result of sincere prayer, not a prerequisite". I took that to mean that provided my desire to know the truth of the existence of a god was sincere (which it entirely was), I did not have to show any particular faith or belief towards his god while I did so.

As I have said before, IF there is a god (whichever god or gods it may be), that piece of knowledge would be THE most important one I could ever have - that ANY of us could ever have. When eternal afterlife rests on that fact, I'd say it is vitally important. One might then decide not to change one's actions based on that knowledge, but I would still regard the fact itself of very great importance. So I am absolutely 100% sincere whenever I say: if there is a god out there, I want to know it1.

It's why I'll always give it a try when a believer is willing to tell me what to do - though to be honest, with every successive failure it gets harder and harder to motivate myself to try it all yet again.

- - - - -

1 This could be read as "Anfauglir has a deep desire for there to BE a god - an aching void in his soul that he needs to fill!" - but that would be incorrect. I suppose you could compare it to my desire to know if there is a massive bomb in my attic - vital knowledge to have, but I would prefer there not to be!

This could be read as "Anfauglir has a deep desire for there to BE a god - an aching void in his soul that he needs to fill!" - but that would be incorrect. I suppose you could compare it to my desire to know if there is a massive bomb in my attic - vital knowledge to have, but I would prefer there not to be!

Oh, no no no, Anfauglir, I'm afraid this just won't do. You see, in Christian terms, "sincerity" does not mean "I want to know the truth, wherever that leads," it means "I have a God-shaped hole in my heart and I really, really wanna believe in Christianity! CanIcanIcanI, huh, huh, pleeeeeeeasssee!" The latter version of "sincerity" is necessary to make the cognitive bias er, heartfelt prayer work.

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"The question of whether atheists are, you know, right, typically gets sidestepped in favor of what is apparently the much more compelling question of whether atheists are jerks."

Thanks for joining, fishjie. So that's maybe a thousand mega-miracles in 6000 years of history. The Bible is a record of the exceptional.

Miracles have not ceased, but they were never a daily occurance.

But wait... you said earlier...."I disagree strongly that any action of God would be detectable in some statistic."

But as I pointed out before, the actions of God were clearly statistically significant. Jesus could walk on water. That's a pretty statistically obvious miracle of God.

Is Jesus had walked on water, how which statistic observable by you would be different?

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So I ask you, if miracles have not ceased, where are they? Jesus clearly stipulated his followers would go on to perform even greater miracles. He even said people could be bitten by poisonous snakes and be fine. Again, statistically significant miracles. I don't see any evidence of this though.

Again, if great healings were taking place at a rate similar to that recorded in the Bible. How would you know about it? It's very rarely God's plan to provide clear evidence before one has developed faith. In the Book of Mormon, the prophet Moroni wrote "You receive no witness until after the trial of your faith." Here's a good link on that topic. http://www.whatdomormonsbelieve.com/2008/04/ye-receive-no-witness-until/

Exercise a little faith in studying the scriptures, following the commandments therein and praying to know whether God exists. That is the path to faith. No one else can compel you to believe.

Whatever prayer you're sincere about is the prayer God will answer...... Let me be clear. You should pray to god without first accepting Jesus as Savior. Faith is the result of sincere prayer, not a prerequisite......3 sincere weeks is plenty.

Hello fizixgeek. Long time no see. About.....six weeks, in fact.

In that time, I've had no prayers answered. Nor have I increased (or indeed developed) any faith.

Hi Anfauglir, Have you really been reading and praying? If so, email me and let's talk. What did you read? What did you pray about? Did you live your life any different for what you'd read?

If you can't, you can't claim anything about your god or its 'plan' that is relevant. You're making a fallacy called pleading and begging the question.

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Book of Mormon,

Can you demonstrate anything in your religious text that is true or reasonable to 'believe' based on logic and evidence?

If you can't, you can't claim anything about your religious text that is relevant. You're making a fallacy called an argument from authority.

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Exercise a little faith ..

Faith is belief without evidence. Why would anyone ever 'believe' something they have no reason to do so?

Why does your claim require us to presuppose as true your claim in circular terms?

Why can't your claim be separated from random make believe?

Why can we, using your style of dishonest presuppositional fallacy laced argumentation, argue for anything even the complete opposite of your own claim using your own terms of 'knowing'?

Why can't you argue for your claims without resorting to sophistry?

What about your religious belief has motivated you to this level of dishonest discourse?

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"Religious faith is the antithesis to knowledge, it is the opposition to education, and it has to act in animosity against the free exchange of ideas. Why? Because those things are what cause harm to a religions place in society most." - Me

But wait... you said earlier...."I disagree strongly that any action of God would be detectable in some statistic."

But as I pointed out before, the actions of God were clearly statistically significant. Jesus could walk on water. That's a pretty statistically obvious miracle of God.

Is Jesus had walked on water, how which statistic observable by you would be different?

That's a fairly gobbled mess of english you posted there, but I presume I have the gist of it when I respond; the statistic, the measureable, the obvious would be SOMEONE WALKING ON WATER!

We could test, measure, and objectively verify if someone were to walk on water. We could do the same for any other alleged miracle as well (parting the red sea, turning water to wine, zombies, healing of amputees, etc.).

ya know, fiz, it is kind of bad manners to come in here and only address the people you think you have baited and are trying to reel in. A'way back on page 11 or so I pointed out how you failed to address at least two big points I made. You have come back periodically to check in on your experiments, so I know you have time. Yet, you've still not dealt with your humanist morality or the Lafferty brothers.

Why is that fiz? Why is it that you treat me with such contempt? I bet the holy spirit, if you listened to it, would tell you not to punk out of this discussion.

Let me be clear. The Holy Ghost speaks truth which can be verified. He will predict events, help you make generalization which you later recognize to be true and lead you places that directly answer your prayers.

You say that as if it were a fact. But it is not. It is a claim. If it could be verified it would be statistically distinguishable from random guessing. Unless you have data that shows that, you are talking out your ass.

For skeptics, you sure buy into a lot of dogma. Only non-scientists could really have such faith in an uncontrolled statistical experiment. You'll have to give me more details on what kind of experiment could reasonably be expected to substantiate the existence of God. I think it's clear to most rational people that the experiments suggested on this site are pathetic science.

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You completely dodged the point about the Laffertys. You completely dodged the point about appealing to secular morality. You may want to sack up and try some intellectual honesty.

What, exactly, is your point about the Laffertys? I'm having trouble seeing how someone's misinterpretation of their own desires as the inspiration of the Spirit invalidates the real and verifiable experiences I or others have had with the Holy Spirit. Once again, someone once claimed they saw laboratory cold fusion. Just because they were wrong doesn't invalidate physics.

And, to be clear, I'm not asking you to believe in God because I say He exists. I'm inviting you to seek your own witness. If you don't think the existence of God is an important thing to investigate, that's OK. Just keep this advice in mind in case you ever do want to know.

ive me more details on what kind of experiment could reasonably be expected to substantiate the existence of God.

The existence or non-existence of god is not a relevant portion of the argument. If god exists to be observed directly or indirectly than it can exist to be known. The problem is that you claim to know, then beg and plead that other people can know.. while never producing any means of 'knowing' that is inseparable from make believe or that can be determined for truth much less from its falsity.

In fact, I can insist your god doesn't exist, then qualify myself using 'faith' and according to you I am absolutely right. I can presuppose anything I wish, like you, and again according to you.. I am right. This is using 'your' method of 'knowing' that is inseparable from random make believe to such a degree that truth can't be determined in separation from falsehood.

Your response to us pointing that out is incredulous denial and ad hominems. -1 Karma for that btw

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I think it's clear to most rational people that the experiments suggested on this site are pathetic science.

I'm incredulous to your incredulity.

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misinterpretation of their own desires

You haven't demonstrated that someones own desires is an misinterpretation.

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as the inspiration of the Spirit

You haven't demonstrated that 'spirit' means anything to be understood.

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real and verifiable experiences

You haven't demonstrated a means of knowing that would allow you to claim an experience is real and verifiable.

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with the Holy Spirit.

You haven't demonstrated a means of knowing that a 'holy spirit' exists, much less what it is or why you would claim it.

Remember, when asked to provide an epistemology that can be separated from make believe, you fall back on pleading dismissals, ad hominems, and contradictory assertions. Further rendering it impossible to separate your claims from make believe.

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'm not asking you to believe in God because I say He exists

Yes you are, in fact you're doing even worse than that. You have presupposed truth without explanation, then insisted that others can 'know' what is inseparable from random make believe and have claimed a 'method' of knowing that is inseparable from random make believe. Everytime someone points out that every single assertion you make lacks any verifiable confirmation to conclude anything, you offer incredulous denial and dismissals. Your arrogant, condescending, and dishonest.

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. I'm inviting you to seek

Seek what?

Seek How?

Seek Why?

These are 3 fundamental things you can't answer in a means that allows one to determine the answer.

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't think the existence of God is an important thing to investigate, that's OK

Strawman.

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. Just keep this advice in mind in case you ever do want to know.

There is nothing your presenting that would allow one to determine a god to exist, even if you were given the benefit of the doubt that a god exists. Your claims are entirely removed from any systematic ability to know 'anything'. One can take your 'method' and claim ANYTHING to exist, then assert it is true based on nothing.

"Religious faith is the antithesis to knowledge, it is the opposition to education, and it has to act in animosity against the free exchange of ideas. Why? Because those things are what cause harm to a religions place in society most." - Me

For skeptics, you sure buy into a lot of dogma. Only non-scientists could really have such faith in an uncontrolled statistical experiment. You'll have to give me more details on what kind of experiment could reasonably be expected to substantiate the existence of God. I think it's clear to most rational people that the experiments suggested on this site are pathetic science.

? Dogma? What dogma am I buying into? All I am doing is asking why I should even consider your claim that you have a Holy Spider Sense. So far the best you can do is just to restate your claim.

As for the experiment, why are you asking me? It is your claim. It is not my job to do your work. If you are saying there is no experiment that would establish the whether or not your pius ESP is fact, then does that not tell you that it is a claim that should be dropped? I mean, cripes man, would you accept that from anyone else? Suppose a Hindu wanted you to worship Hanuman, the monkey god, and told you about his awesome powers. But he then told you that those powers did not just not have any evidence, but in addition there was no possible way to get evidence. Would you crack open a cocconut, or would you tell him to go piss up a rope?

What, exactly, is your point about the Laffertys? I'm having trouble seeing how someone's misinterpretation of their own desires as the inspiration of the Spirit invalidates the real and verifiable experiences I or others have had with the Holy Spirit. Once again, someone once claimed they saw laboratory cold fusion. Just because they were wrong doesn't invalidate physics.

jesus tits. the block of text under the last quote in this text covers it. It is some of the best work I've done here and you...you just could not be bothered.

You have no right to say their prophecies are just misinterpretation and ego while yours are gen-U-ine, bona fide missives from the super spook because you have no way to tell the difference. You have no way of knowing they were "doing it wrong". In fact, you also have no way of knowing whether you are doing it wrong either.

fiz, what you are doing - playing ventriloquist with god, putting your voice and desires into the mouth of god - is so dangerous. You have to face up to it. You have to recognize that you are just hearing yourself and attributing it to god. If you don't, then there is nothing between you and ending up like Ron Lafferty.

Let me be clear. The Holy Ghost speaks truth which can be verified. He will predict events, help you make generalization which you later recognize to be true and lead you places that directly answer your prayers.

...then there ought to be plenty of ways to set up controlled statistical studies, using the same methodology we use for testing if new drugs work or not. Real, True Christians who have access to infallible predictions of future events--even if they only have access sometimes--would still have an advantage over non-RTC's in life. We would find that RTC's have a statistically-significant rate of cancelling or changing flights from planes due to crash vs. people of other belief systems in the same demographic categories, they do better with stock picks, selection of real estate, or whatever "events" the Holy Ghost tends to predict. "Answered prayer" would provide some sort of measurable benefits that people without "answered prayer" would lack. And so on.

You'll have to give me more details on what kind of experiment could reasonably be expected to substantiate the existence of God.

Er, no, you're the one making the claim. It's up to you to specify your claim with sufficient precision, then define an experiment that could falsify your claim. This experiment should be designed with controls set up to rule out other variables like, say, cognitive biases, or even a natural, human "psychic power" that could produce results similar or equivalent to "answered prayer" in the absence of your specific concept of "God." Then, run the experiment and subject your results to critical peer review as a prelude to publication in a scientific journal. Our job as skeptics is merely to check your work, to see that you did not employ flawed methodology, or fail to eliminate a significant variable that could invalidate your conclusion. For example, if it turned out that Muslims received a similar degree of benefit from "answered prayers" that (your type of) Christians do, that indicates there's a variable at work that does not conform to the anticipated consequences of "(Your version of) God exists and answers prayers from His faithful followers."

Analogy: Let's say a physicist claims that the dark matter mystery can be explained by the existence of a particle called the quasion. It wouldn't be enough to just make some vague and untestable claims about quasions, and declare victory. Instead, the physicist would have to clearly specify the attributes of the quasion (charge, spin, mass, half-life if it has one, a mathematical description of how it relates to the rest of known physics, etc.) and specify what sort of experiment or observation might be conducted in the future[1] to falsify or validate the existence of quasions. If the physicist tried to say something along the lines of "I think quasions are the solution to the dark matter mystery. So why don't you guys do some experiments to prove quasions don't exist. What's a quasion, you ask? Dunno, they're kinda ineffable," she or he would be laughed out of the profession.

I'm having trouble seeing how someone's misinterpretation of their own desires as the inspiration of the Spirit invalidates the real and verifiable experiences I or others have had with the Holy Spirit.

If all we have to go on is people's interpretations of inner mystical experiences of "the Spirit," we have no way to know which ones are "real and verifiable" in your terms. What you have thus far failed to provide is a methodology to separate false "spiritual" claims from authentic ones, and then to show that the allegedly authentic ones represent a genuine understanding of the alleged phenomenon.

Once again, someone once claimed they saw laboratory cold fusion. Just because they were wrong doesn't invalidate physics.

No, but it does cast a lot of doubt on claims to have discovered cold fusion, does it not? Being a "physics geek," I'm sure you must have some idea of how the scientific community views claims of cold fusion.

And, to be clear, I'm not asking you to believe in God because I say He exists. I'm inviting you to seek your own witness.

What methodology do you suggest? Given the incredible diversity of religious beliefs that you reject as false (if you're an "orthodox"/conservative Christian rather than, say, a New Ager who believes all paths lead to God), what method could we apply equally to your god and any other god/gods, which would produce results showing that yours is the real one?

This has to be a new experiment or observation that has not been made yet, with testable anticipated consequences we would expect to see if quasions exist, or if they don't. It has to be specified intentionally to rule out "wiggle room"/goalpost moving so the quasion advocate can't say, "Well, maybe the quasions are undetectable because..."

I'd like him to address why six weeks on, nothing has happened.....though to be honest I'm expecting one or more of:1) Disappearing.2) Claiming I didn't do it "right" - you know, adding conditions to what he said previously.3) Claiming "god answered but I haven't noticed" - you know, something completely different to the assertions he made before....especially since the object of the exercise was me gaining faith.

Well, then you heard it here first. Whatever prayer you're sincere about is the prayer God will answer. The outward manifestations of prayer are worlds less important than the inward sincerity. Let me be clear. You should pray to god without first accepting Jesus as Savior. Faith is the result of sincere prayer, not a prerequisite.

Very clear. Just pray. Indeed, you said also "Pray to God without a name". So I did. For three weeks I said, sincerely, "if there is a god out there, I want to know - please make yourself known to me." You know - doing just what you said I needed to do, doing just what you said would get an answer. But none came. And you appear to be offering me the "you didn't do it right" response that I have heard so many times before.

So what happened? Did you wilfully mislead me as to what I needed to do? Or did you honestly expect it to work, but your god decided not to play ball?

But wait... you said earlier...."I disagree strongly that any action of God would be detectable in some statistic."

But as I pointed out before, the actions of God were clearly statistically significant. Jesus could walk on water. That's a pretty statistically obvious miracle of God.

Is Jesus had walked on water, how which statistic observable by you would be different?

That's a fairly gobbled mess of english you posted there, but I presume I have the gist of it when I respond; the statistic, the measureable, the obvious would be SOMEONE WALKING ON WATER!

We could test, measure, and objectively verify if someone were to walk on water. We could do the same for any other alleged miracle as well (parting the red sea, turning water to wine, zombies, healing of amputees, etc.).

I wonder why it's never happened?

edit for clarity.

ROFL! thx for responding for me. I could not make any sense of his answer either.

bottom line, according to the bible, this god makes his presence known. i'm not talking about the ambiguous, wimpy, and unremarkable "miracles" of today's christians where they pray for their allergies to be healed and BEHOLD, they are gone the next day. nope, god's miracles in the bible were brash, bold, direct, measurable and observable. soaking a sacrifice in water and calling down fire to consume it? that's pretty boss. healing the blind and raising the dead? badass!

the bible gave no indication that these miracles would cease. jesus said his followers would go on to perform greater miracles than him. he didn't indicate that all they would be able to do thousands of years from now would be healing migraines and stomach aches via prayer. sounds like a serious downgrade to me.

Well, then you heard it here first. Whatever prayer you're sincere about is the prayer God will answer. The outward manifestations of prayer are worlds less important than the inward sincerity. Let me be clear. You should pray to god without first accepting Jesus as Savior. Faith is the result of sincere prayer, not a prerequisite.

Very clear. Just pray. Indeed, you said also "Pray to God without a name". So I did. For three weeks I said, sincerely, "if there is a god out there, I want to know - please make yourself known to me." You know - doing just what you said I needed to do, doing just what you said would get an answer. But none came. And you appear to be offering me the "you didn't do it right" response that I have heard so many times before.

So what happened? Did you wilfully mislead me as to what I needed to do? Or did you honestly expect it to work, but your god decided not to play ball?

What writings about this nameless god were you supposed to read about anyways?

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"In the end theologians are jealous of science, for they are aware that it has greater authority than do their own ways of finding “truth”: dogma, authority, and revelation. Science does find truth, faith does not. " - Jerry Coyne